Joy in Motion

Happy Birthday, Martha Graham!

I love what Google did in celebration of Martha Graham today – check out http://www.google.com today only to view it live, or check out the YouTube clip below.

I also love The Story Behind the Graham Google Doodle that the Martha Graham Center for Contemporary Dance posted on their website! I’m not sure how long this will be up for, so be sure to check it out today if you can. Also, here are two short quotes by Martha Graham (you can find a bunch more here):

Dance is the hidden language of the soul.

And I love this one:

I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one’s being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.

Happy Birthday, Martha Graham!

Ten Lessons and a Final Word: Musicality Book Club, Week 11

We have finally arrived at the end of W.A. Mathieu’s book, Bridge of Waves: What Music Is and How Listening to It Changes the World. What a journey! I really enjoyed taking my time to reflect on each chapter and sharing thoughts and experiences with many of you through the comments and by email. Even if you are joining us late, feel free to join in the discussion!

The final chapter, Living the Waves, is pretty short and provides just some final parting thoughts, so I’d like to use this last post in our musicality book club to summarize my “take-aways” from this book before wrapping up with a final quote from Mathieu. These lessons are not necessarily new and not necessarily learned, but they are definitely the ones that most resonate with my own experience with dance and that I will continue to meditate on for quite a while. What truths do you keep returning to?

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Unexpected Gifts in Music We Don’t Like: Musicality Book Club, Week 10

A few days ago I read a guest article by Lindy hopper Coyle Parker on the Dance World Takeover blog. In it, he quotes an interview with teacher Dan Newsome, who lists “not connecting to the music” as one of the top three reasons dancers suffer from burnout (the other two are lack of helpful feedback to progress and unhappiness with their place in the community). There is sooo much in Chapter 9 of Bridge of Waves that relates to this and that I want to write more about, because they are things I have been reflecting on for quite some time, but for today I want stick to something short and simple.

Experimenting with music outside my comfort zone has opened up whole new worlds to me, so I have always encouraged my friends and students to reconsider music they think they hate. There will always be music I don’t feel very connected to, but I prefer to think of it as music that I just haven’t gotten to know well enough – yet. It is natural to have tastes, preferences, and choices (and I definitely like mine!), but some of my most memorable dance/music experiences have happened because I opened myself up to something new and unexpected.

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